Have been looking forward to climbing the Bard at Araps for ages. When climbed last weekend I was very disappointed at how run out the first pitch was. About 8 meters before we could get any gear in. Next time we will use first pitch of Eagle cleft.

Not that I ever hold controversial opinions, but I reckon Bard is the most overrated classic at the Mt. Maybe 1 pitch of really good climbing on it. Lots of bird shit, wandering, polish and manky rock. I'd take Resignation, Arachnus or Eskimo Nell over it anyday.

M75 wrote;>What does run out mean to you? And anyone have any run out horror stories they'd like to share?

Runout for me means the choices of calculated risk that I make.

On 7/09/2012 shortman wrote:>Harder stuff if I make a choice to go for it at the expense of pumping>out placing gear, then run out usually means I'm gonna get frucked up>if I stuff it.>
There are many shades of grey.
One of my more memorable ground-up multipitch new-route leads that I did in the 'Bungles, involved getting to a point where I was too pumped to even consider down-climbing (not really possible for me to reverse the moves on that pitch anyway), and although there was gear opportunity above between myself at half pitch height and the next likely belay stance; I knew I did not have enough 'left in the tank' (read reserve strength), to get to the belay if trying to place any (likely to be fiddly), gear along the way.

Bad landing guaranteed, and this at more than a pitch off the true deck...

I mentally calculated/weighed up my options vs my estimation of ability (strength left in fading arms, etc), visual assessment of the (hard for me at the time), climbing ahead; and went for it.
The physical relief of arriving at the belay stance utterly spent, was not a patch on the euphoria of knowing that I had accurately assessed my abilities and that the real 'hook' within climbing is the mental component.
That realisation among other similar ones learned by experience over the years, has paid huge dividends in my climbing since then, and is largely why I am still involved in the game!

>But all of these things are very much mood dependant. And I gotta admit,>the more I climb, the more gear I use.

Shades of grey come into this component too.
The game can be deliberately varied by the deliberate choices that we make concerning gear, tactics, style, etc.
Macciza speaks truth in his many posts on the subject, that I relate extremely closely too!

On 8/09/2012 Groveller wrote:>Have been looking forward to climbing the Bard at Araps for ages. When>climbed last weekend I was very disappointed at how run out the first pitch>was. About 8 meters before we could get any gear in. Next time we will>use first pitch of Eagle cleft.

Here is another 'shade of grey' twist for consideration...

When I led Bard I seriously considered running the first and second pitches together as one, due to being on longish double ropes, and nil prior knowledge of the route other than visual assessment from the ground. I figured with careful rope management I could maybe include the 'traverse' into that lead...

I was approaching the start of the airy traverse section and wondering how much rope I had left, due the rope-drag wasn't 'bad' yet, and looked down over a rock protrusion to talk with my (new for me) belayer about it.
I was horrified to see him calmly walking up that polished slab, carrying-coiling armfuls of lead rope as slack in the process!
~> I suddenly felt run-out!! ... ~> and hastily decided to make where I was located a belay point!!!

After completing Bard, where I led every pitch and treated the remainder of the climb as a solo (due to having my confidence at the time effectively shot), we didn't climb anything else that day. ~> ~> Did I mention that 'solo' under those circumstances means every move there-after is slow and considered? Heh, heh, heh.

Miscommunication can be insidious, as I probably mentioned to my belayer the tactic of trying to get to the second belay in one pitch, but did not expect my belayer to facilitate the process in that fashion.

Snake Dyke on half Dome has a few pitches with no gear at all, 50m run outs from one anchor to the next. It's pretty straight forward climbing at that stage, but that's not the point of this thread.

Wendenstock was pretty run out, and steep and loose (all the food groups). There were usually 2 or 3 pieces of fixed gear per pitch, which were mostly threaded drill holes. I placed other gear where I could, but a lot of that was pretty crappy due to the rock.

Gritstone edges are notoriously run out. I was way more scared at Stanage than I ever was in the Valley.

There probably a formula you could work out to determine if a route is run out for yourself. As your abilities, how cool you're feeling on the day, degree of difficulty, style of climb, amount and quality of gear, etc etc = run out/or not.

Us old beard strokers know that it is where Chris Dewhirst fell (from the top of the slab) when he stepped on some wet moss. His knee cap was cracked into two pieces and was removed (it didn't stop him from climbing).

And I've been scanning in some old slides, here is one that shows what run out means.

It shows Rein Kamar, Bob Connell and A.Nother on Genesis at Piddington about 40 years ago (early '70s for the numerically challenged).

I know what you mean, those are great moments that define climbs . . .
Half the battle sometimes is the choices to be made re style and ethics . . .
Perhaps it one of those things where the more you need to explain to someone the less likely they are to understand; like say quantum physics, or god . . .

My Ego
A reality check!!! I was doing battle with this component of my feeble structure at a point in time, when i decided to seek advice from a sage like friend in NATI! "You don't climb with the intention hurting yourself." "So climb on good gear." It would seem to me that, good gear, has a variety of meanings to climbers as a group. e.g. " I would have used a nut in that situation................." "Get the idea." Thus the individual decoding this advice is faced with either feeling put down or supported! Only the individual in the drivers seat really knows what decision making processes he or she goes through in real time when the fight or flight response is kicking in, and when one's fate is in question.